“That stupid guy, the president of Smartmatic, pressured to the neck by the gringos and the Brits, said there were 7.5 million [voters],” Mr. Maduro said. “I think there were 10 million Venezuelans who went out.” Antonio Mujica, the chief executive of Smartmatic, the Venezuelan multinational has operated the country’s votes since 2004. Mujica said on Wednesday that the count produced by the electronic system was at least a million votes short of that announced by the election commission.

Pushing forward with the assembly, the tyrant Maduro will seal his power. The assembly, formed of elected and appointed members, is empowered to rewrite the 1999 Constitution to favor the Maduro government and to dismiss any institutions (such as the opposition-controlled Parliament) deemed obstructive to its socialist agenda.

[Maduro’s] denial came as Venezuela’s rebel attorney general, Louisa Ortega Diaz, ordered an investigation into the announcement from Smartmatic, which has now pulled all of its employees out of the country amid security fears.

Ms. Ortega Diaz, a formerly loyal Chavista who has turned on the government over human rights abuses and the constituent assembly election, told CNN she believed it was possible that less than 15 percent of the electorate voted – far from the 41.5 per cent claimed by the government.

“This country has lost all its freedoms progressively… the repression grows ever greater. All these actions are taking the country towards a dictatorial regime. Unfortunately if we keep going this way we will lose democracy,” she said. –Telegraph